Frank Malina

Frank Joseph Malina was an American aeronautical engineer and painter, born in Brenham, Texas, in 1912 and dying in 1981, who was known for his pioneering work in early rocketry. After a mechanical engineering degree from Texas A&M in 1934 he went to the California Institute of Technology, where he earned his doctorate in 1940. In 1935 he persuaded Theodore von Karman to let him study rocket propulsion, and his group with Jack Parsons, Qian Xuesen and others, nicknamed the Suicide Squad, moved to the Arroyo Seco, the site that became the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Malina served as the second Director of JPL. In 1942 he started Aerojet Corporation with von Karman and three other students, and he left Aerojet in 1947 to turn to other work.